Conclusions

Abstract

The aim set forth in the introduction has been accomplished. Through the description of the self-referring circular organization of the living system, and through the analysis of the domains of interactions that such an organization specifies, I have shown the emergence of a self-referring system capable of making descriptions and of generating, through orienting interactions with other, similar, systems and with itself, both a consensual linguistic domain and a domain of self-consciousness, that is: I have shown the emergence of the observer. This result alone satisfies the fundamental demand put forth at the outset: ‘The observer is a living system and any understanding of cognition as a biological phenomenon must account for the observer and his role in it’ and proves the validity of this analysis.